i have a lovely crop of dandelions, sad grass, stunted bushes and a transplanted camellia on the verge of death. not pretty or functional. the plan was to do something like this in phases:

it currently looks like this:

i have a few restrictions on what I can do this year, namely budget, time, and impending renovations, which will chew up most of the yard anyways. if we raise the house, the front entry will change significantly, so it doesn’t seem like the best idea to focus on landscaping that area.

What to do in the interim? since i have to avert my eyes whenever i approach the house from the front, i have to do something. realistically, we won’t start the actual construction part of the reno until fall, so i have time to get a growing season in.

because we’re on a corner lot, the yard along the sidewalk is a favourite message board for the neighbourhood dogs. which is fine (except for those unspeakable owners who do NOT clean up after their pets), but i don’t want to plant anything edible along those edges.

maybe i will relocate the small runty bushes in a line along the outer edges of the yard, move the three miscanthus grasses to where they are supposed to go (along the property line with the neighbours), and just dump a load of topsoil in an L-shape on top of the horrible grass. or do i need to rototill that sucker first? hmmm…

this way, i could plant my veggies for this year (southern exposure, albeit with a large maple tree casting some shade), improve the soil and start building it up for leveling the front yard at some point.

in the meantime, i shall continue to browse some of the wonderful front yard ideas here: